Grad Student Windemuth Honored for Astronomy Research

Diana Windemuth, a graduate student in the Astronomy Department, received Honorable Mention as a Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award Recipient at the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society held Jan. 6-10 in Long Beach, Calif.

The award is given to recognize exemplary research by graduate students who present a poster at the meeting. Diana’s poster was titled “Dramatic Evolution of the Disk-Shaped Secondary in the Orion Trapezium Star θ1 Ori B1 (BM Ori): MOST Satellite Observations.”

Windemuth’s advisor is William Herbst, the John Monroe Van Vleck Professor of Astronomy. Her work included results from two former Astronomy graduate students, Evan Tingle and Rachel Fueschl. Additional co-authors on the poster were Roy Kilgard, research assistant professor of astronomy, and Matthew Templeton and Arne Henden of the American Association of Variable Star Observers.

Windemuth’s results are based on data obtained with a Canadian satellite known as MOST and a NASA satellite known as Chandra. The work was supported by a grant to Wesleyan from NASA’s Origins of Solar Systems program. Her work will soon be published in The Astrophysical Journal.